Ascendas India Trust to invest 12b rupees in first phase of India data centre campus

ASCENDAS India Trust (a-iTrust) is investing 12 billion rupees (S$216.6 million) to develop and operate the first of two buildings planned for its inaugural data centre campus in Navi Mumbai, India.

In a press statement on Monday, the trustee-manager said the upcoming data centre will be one of the largest data centre campuses in Airoli. The campus will host customers such as global technology giants, cloud service providers and large domestic enterprise clients, it added.

Acquisition of the 6.6 acre (2.7 hectare) greenfield site from third-party vendors is expected to complete by Q3 of 2021. According to the trustee-manager, the site is situated in a prime location along Thane-Belapur Road and easily accessible from Mumbai city via the Eastern Express Highway.

The site will be developed in phases into a fully fitted data centre campus comprising two buildings with a total potential built-up area of up to 575,000 square feet (sq ft) and 90 megawatts of power.

The first building or phase one of the project is scheduled to be ready by Q2 of 2024. It will have a built-up area of about 325,000 sq ft.

Upon completion of both buildings, the data centre campus will have an overall capacity to host about 8,500 racks and operate at an efficient power usage effectiveness ratio of 1.4.

A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU

Tuesday, 12 pm

Property Insights

Get an exclusive analysis of real estate and property news in Singapore and beyond.

Sign Up

a-iTrust's trustee-manager said it plans to adopt sustainable design principles and green building standards for the campus to include features such as intelligent energy management systems, solar panels and waterless cooling systems.

"Developing our first data centre campus with support from our sponsor, CapitaLand, will allow us to leverage the CapitaLand group's data centre expertise and give us complete control over the design and quality of the data centre," said Sanjeev Dasgupta, chief executive of the trustee-manager.

"We look to improve our portfolio resilience through diversification into new economy asset classes such as data centres and life sciences. As we grow further, we will continue to be prudent in our capital management and nimble in seizing investment opportunities, to maximise unitholders' returns."

Units of a-iTrust closed S$0.02 or 1.39 per cent higher at S$1.46 on Monday, after the announcement.